Updated 9:29 pm, Saturday, November 26, 2011

Saturday night, James Oki would have celebrated his 10-year reunion with friends from the Shaker High School class of 2001.

Instead, those classmates gathered with dozens of relatives and friends in the basement of his family's Latham home to say prayers and sing hymns in his honor as they all absorbed the shock of his death.

Oki, 29, was crossing Quail Street at Elk Street in Albany at 1:42 a.m. when he was struck by a driver who was heading north on Quail and sped off in an unknown direction, police said. Oki suffered massive head injuries and died just before 5 a.m. at Albany Medical Center Hospital.

Police believe the driver was operating a dark-green Honda with front-end damage and possibly a missing rear-view mirror on its passenger side.

Oki's sister, 27-year-old April Oki, said she answered the doorbell at 4 a.m. and two detectives told her that her brother had been injured in an accident and that she should get her mother.

"I didn't say anything," she said. "I just looked at them."

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Her father was at work, taking care of elderly at their homes. By the time the family got to the hospital, James' heart had stopped beating.

At the family home on Saturday night, the Okis received a steady stream of family and friends exchanging hugs and offering words of comfort. Cars lined the street in front of the split-level house and phones did not stop ringing. April Oki said visitors had been at the house since they got home from the hospital about 7 or 8 a.m. Saturday.

Photos of the tight-knit Nigerian family are hung all over the home, with a photo of James in a Navy dress blue uniform placed on a mantle in the family's living room.

"James loved God and he loved people," April Oki said. "That is what anybody who knew James knows."

After graduating from Shaker in 2001, James Oki took classes at the University of Albany, his sister said, but a patriotic sense led him to join the Navy at 22.

He was stationed in San Diego for six years and had just moved back home to be closer to his family and had begun taking classes toward a communications degree at The College of Saint Rose in the fall.

"I think he wanted to do something with sales and marketing, but with management," April Oki said.

April Oki said the family isn't sure where James was headed as he crossed Quail. He left home late Friday to catch up with friends who were in town for the reunion, but never ended up meeting up with them.